Lewandowsky does “science” by taunts and attempted parody instead of answering questions

Stephan Lewandowsky is rattled. Not surprisingly. Right now, his blog has gone from a steady run of zero-to-three-comment-posts up to 200, and the skeptics are armed with cutting questions.

But the more he writes, the worse it gets. Skeptics have picked apart his methods, his data, his transparency, and his conclusions. His latest responses are childish taunts with variants of name-calling. What place does an unrelated smear have in a science debate? It’s an effort to distract people.

His paper, in press, has been shown to have a misleading headline, with worthless conclusions based on statistically insignificant number of responses, using a clumsy one-sided test — the aim of which was obvious to most readers. When asked for data he provided answers to 32 questions but still hides the results obtained to a quarter of his original survey, including the basic demographics. He changed the order of questions depending on the blog he sought replies from — effectively putting different versions of the survey up (see below for his explanation). He himself emailed or was named in emails to alarmist anti-skeptic bloggers, while he used an unknown assistant to email skeptical blogs. These non-standard methods were not described in his paper.

It’s an unusual professional demeanor to write as a professor of science in a genre of attempted-parody. The dismissive, puerile efforts to mock those who are seriously dissecting his work are not contributing much to humankind’s knowledge. For a man too busy to answer questions vital to his work, why try his hand at comedy?

Shame about those public funds eh?

The man is supposed to be an expert on the topic of conspiracies, yet can’t define them scientifically, espouses conspiracies himself, and is blind to that because he thinks his conspiracies are proven facts. (Where are all those cheques from Big-oil that have more effect than the billions that are documented as vested interests for the case-for-alarm?) Furthermore, he made the unlikely claim that questions from skeptics about his methodology amounted to proof of “conspiratorial thinking” — despite there being no conspiracy or co-conspirators postulated, just his own incompetent work. If this is how the man defines “conspiracies”, no wonder he has so much trouble writing surveys on the topic. Skeptics asked which blogs he had contacted for his research. He behaved as if it were unreasonable to expect him to back up his statements, or provide emails done for publicly funded work.

UPDATE: A day after we skeptics figured out who four of the five bloggers were, and I updated the page here, Lewandowsky finally gives up the names still claiming (improbably) that he needed special approval to release emails that were never private, and never under an ethical question in the first place. He admonishes skeptics for “outing” his assistant, and says they should have searched their inbox instead — except they did, they searched under “Lewandowsky”, “Oberauer” and “Gignac” (as any rational person would). Lewandowsky still hasn’t explained why he personally contacted the anti-skeptic blogs, but not the key skeptical ones. Stephan claims skeptics do shoddy record keeping, yet he’s the one who didn’t bother searching the internet to find his own survey was hosted by junkscience.

It’s all about the perception

To keep face, and and some semblance of “winning”, he ignores the major flaws in his work, and posts somewhat triumphantly on minor points. The headline result in the paper was, after all, only from four responses from so-called “skeptics” on the moon landing conspiracy, some, or all of which were likely to be fake responses. If he had surveyed the audience he wrote the paper about (instead of asking those who virulently dislike the group in question), it goes without saying (or it ought to) that the results “might” be different.

Despite being a professor of psychology, Lewandowsky was baffled that this was an issue. He seems to think that results would be the same no matter what site the survey was hosted on:

To clarify, this means that participants were recruited from those blogs that posted the link—not those that did not. One might therefore presume that attention would focus on those blogs that provided entry points to the survey, not those that did not, because it is entirely unclear how the latter might contribute to the results of the survey. For example, the website of the British RSPCA also did not post a link to the survey, and neither did the Australian Woolworths website, so how might their non-involvement affect the results? I am keen to hear about potential mechanisms, perhaps we have overlooked something.

So armed with a total sample size of four for the headline point, he mocks the scientists who point out the obvious — that not only is the sample is too small to be meaningful, but even if it was larger, such a skewed non-representative cohort is also a separate and significant problem. If you wanted to understand what motivates Greens, would you post survey’s on One Nation sites?

Posting the survey on anti-skeptic sites was especially a problem when coupled with the ease of entering anonymous fake responses (as Lucia pointed out). It’s not a question of “did anyone fake the response” — the problem is “how many?”

UPDATE: Steve McIntyre tried to ask about the problem of fake questions on Lewandowsky’s blog and has been censored for being inflammatory.

Finally, try to imagine that Lewandowsky has a clinical dispassionate interest his research topic

We would assume he’d be happy to help reach the group he wants to study, and would have been disappointed at the time not to have a larger and remotely representative sample. He seems to be making a specialty about focusing on a very specific group of the population, so you would think he would be keen to foster decent relationships with the few people who have instant access to thousands of the very subjects he professes to be dissecting. Instead Lewandowsky is amused that key skeptic bloggers don’t realize he tried to contact them, and that his research suggestion has sat ignored for two years and that he missed out on getting meaningful results. He taunts skeptics with a hint, but without being helpful enough to give them the essential details they need to search for. He doesn’t provide the subject header, or the name of his assistant who sent the messages:

“Should any others want to continue searching their correspondence, it might be helpful to know that my assistant has just re-read old correspondence from some time ago (e.g., from Thu, 23 Sep 2010 08:38:33 -0400) with considerable amusement in light of the frivolous accusations flying about the internet that we may not have contacted those blogs with a request to post a link.

What they needed to know (and figured out without his help) was the name “Charles Hanich”.

UPDATE: Stephan also bizarrely claims he gave skeptics the search keys:

One of the phrases he calls a “key” was “Thanks. I’ll take a look at that”, which is so generic it’s useless. I searched 33k “sent” items and found hundreds of emails with that phrase, he also gave the date Sept 23, but not Sept 6. He didn’t release the keyword that mattered “Hanich” even though the assistants name was on the official email and The truth is that despite his lack of help, skeptics had it almost completely figured out. His honest help would have meant the questions were never asked in the first place.

Why not rearrange the survey questions?

In response to legitimate concerns that he used four different survey urls instead of one common one, the professor responds with babble:

Finally this new friend from Conspirania is getting some legs.

About time, too, I was getting lonely.

Astute readers will have noted that if the Survey ID’s from above are vertically concatenated and then viewed backwards at 33 rpm, they read “Mitt Romney was born in North Korea.”

To understand the relevance of Mr Romney’s place of birth requires a secret code word. This code word, provided below, ought to be committed to memory before burning this post.

So here it is, the secret code. Read it backwards: gnicnalabretnuoc.

Translating the baby-talk, “gnicnalabretnuoc” means counterbalancing, a common technique in studies where surveys are dished up with questions in random or alternate order. But there would be nothing random about giving skeptics one kind of order, and giving alarmists another, if that occurred. Did the Lewandowsky team divide up the surveys so that all four arrangements were split between skeptics and alarmists? It is impossible to say (or replicate) without the details of which survey applied to which link. If he attempted to randomize things manually, isn’t that noteworthy in the methods, and doesn’t it at least deserve a polite explanation on his taxpayer funded blog?

The Deltoid, Tamino, Mandia and Hot-Topic blogs were sent surveyID=HKMKNF_991e2415 on about August 29th. That survey is on the archive, and starts with 6 questions about free markets.

Bickmore and Few Things had the surveyID=HKMKNG_ee191483 also about Aug 29, but this one doesn’t seem to be on the archive.

Steve McIntyre and Marc Morano were sent surveyID=HKMKNI_9a13984. This survey is on the archive, and it starts with questions about how happy you are with life. Likewise Junk Science was sent surveyID=HKMKNI_9a13984&UID=3313891469 (which I presume is the same?)

I hear that there is a similar phenomena in psychological studies – where the order of questioning is likely to effect the outcome.

If there was a system of randomised surveys used don’t you think it should have been mentioned in the Method section of the paper?

I think we know that Steve McIntyre and the JunkScience site were offered one flavour of survey so I would assume that the other skeptic sites were at least offered the others to mix this up. Is this what happened? This seems a hard to manage randomising technique that can’t be controlled for. Were attempts made to control for balancing the counterbalancing over the cohorts* of “pro-science” and “skeptic” targets?

thomaswfullerasks

I’m interested in your theory of counterbalancing. It normally refers to having half the Likert questions order preference with highest preference at the top of the scale and half at the bottom. You apparently mean something different. What do you think it is?

When will we be able to view the different iterations of the survey?

When will we be able to see how many respondents filled out each version?

Why would you send invitations to bloggers to post the survey without attaching your name to it?

Why would you discuss the objectives of a survey with potential respondents while the survey was still in the field?

Why do you not attach numbers of respondents, as is customary, to your discussion of results in your paper?

I shall have a lot more to say soon about the smears and how preposterous they are in a separate post.

——————————————————-

PART I Lewandowsky – Shows “skeptics” are nutters by asking alarmists to fill out survey

125 comments to Lewandowsky does “science” by taunts and attempted parody instead of answering questions

Lewandowsky seems to be scampering around trying to justify his survey and his methods only now because they’ve been shown to be flawed. To have any credibility at all he should have stated all this far earlier, although perhaps if he’d said it in his paper it would never have passed peer-review. Mind you ad hominem attacks against those who criticises one’s work are not really the stuff for peer-reviewed papers.

It’s a sad indictment of the academic system that Lewandowsky is employed as a professor because his actions are dragging the UWA down into the mud, along with his own reputation which I doubt was very high to begin with. (I trust someone is forwarding all of these articles and comments to the university’s vice chancellor.)

“If you wanted to understand what motivates Greens, would you post survey’s on One Nation sites?”

You may well do. YOu may want to compare the results of the two sites, and other background general population type sites, so that you can see if there is actually a difference rather than just confirmation bias.

When I did the survey I’m sure it was from a skeptic site link, and I definately would have registered a greater tendency to subscribe to a range of the other conspiracies than AGW, so I wonder how they interpreted that?

Not defending Prof L, but you should be careful of some of the language used in the OP as, for example, the sentence I quote is a good rallying cry but does not stand up to even moderate scruitiny.

I’ve not read his paper, have no interest in reading his paper, and would be entirely unsurprised to find, if I did find the desire and the time to read his paper, that it is dreadful. I have read this blog article, however, and have made a comment that I think is valid regarding whether or not you may try and sample a broader population than the one you are specifically interestedin in such a study.

I consider that Jo’s “One Nation’ analogy, not only doesn’t detract from her article but makes a valid contribution.

“If you wanted to understand what motivates Greens, would you post survey’s on One Nation sites?”[Jo]

You may well do. You may want to compare the results of the two sites, and other background general population type sites, so that you can see if there is actually a difference rather than just confirmation bias. [Matt]

Representative: Are you asking the right people?
It is much better to ask a few of the right people what they think than a lot of the wrong people.

Lewandowsky was doing a small sample with the wrong people.

Matt, one can come up with exceptional cases to just about anything, but what does that prove, other than pedantry? Making a point based on reasonable probabilities is itself reasonable. You aren’t throwing out the baby with the bathwater; you are throwing out the bathwater because of the baby in it.

“If you wanted to understand what motivates Greens, would you post survey’s on One Nation sites?”

You may well do. YOu may want to compare the results of the two sites, and other background general population type sites, so that you can see if there is actually a difference rather than just confirmation bias.

Mattb, if I published a paper saying that I’d found Greens were nutter conspiracists by surveying the Greens from 8 variants of One Nation fan-sites, and getting no data from the Greens sites would you endorse that as a reasonable method?

If Lewandowsky wanted to compare skeptics and believers, he actually needs to write a survey that skeptics can be bothered filling in, and he needs to make contact with skeptic bloggers. The last three days may be the first time in his life he has any understanding of what it’s like to really “get email” and he doesn’t seem to be coping too well with it.

“and getting no data from the Greens sites” is different to saying “would you post survey’s on One Nation sites?” The latter does not suggest the former.

If I had a large enough sample it would be interesting to know how people like Brooksey and myself differ from people who post at the warmist sites… is there a statistical difference between the rest and those of us who feel the perverted urge to hang out a skeptical blogs? There are all sorts of interesting things one may want to see if you can find out with a well devised and implemented survey.

This ‘comparison’ stuff is odious and of very little intrinsic merit in my view. It is a distracting and spurious subject, amounting to vacuous knowledge masquerading as science.

If I had a large enough sample it would be interesting to know how people like Brooksey and myself differ from people who post at the warmist sites… is there a statistical difference between the rest and those of us who feel the perverted urge to hang out a skeptical blogs?

What you you mean “interesting?” Define this use of the word. What would actually be of associational interest to you? So a survey (a cross sectional study) establishes that at the time you completed the survey you pick your nose, run in the morning, enjoy cricket, hold an academic occupation and enjoy acting as an agent provocateur.

It serves to characterise by association but of itself is insufficient to attribute causation. What would you discover from your analysis of warmists and rationalists, having first properly matched your comparative groups? Anything you like, depending on the questions you pose.

This is little more than distracting rubbish. It is really of considerably greater interest that the GCM’s appear unable to model volcanoes Volcanic Corroboration http://wattsupwiththat.com/

Stephan Lewandowsky (Professorial Fellow UWA) has done little to contribute to either his, his institution’s research standing, or the standing of the journal ‘Psychological Science’ that published the paper. The latter two, likely will be reeling with embarrassment behind closed doors.

Now, let’s get on with the discovery of the latest UN policy driving document – AR5.

That removes any semblance of scientific objectivity in his study of sceptics, doesn’t it? Isn’t that the very same argument used against Christy, Spencer and McKitrick in respect of their religious beliefs preventing their AGW science from being taken seriously; or according to Oreskes and the vile Skeptical Science site, that scientists like Singer endorse or in the pay of big tobacco etc and therefore their AGW science is tainted? Why shouldn’t the same argument be used against Lewandowsky?

Lewandowsky receieves a valuable government stipend; is it dependent on his virulent anti-sceptic position?

Your reason for saying Lewandowsky was justified in polling sceptical sites as well as pro-AGW sites because that would establish some sort of control is beyond naive, it is disingenuous; the smart-alecs at the pro sites like Deltoid would of course use Lewandowsky’s self-serving survey to impersonate sceptics; and, as is evident, sceptics would not bother. I would bet good money that Lewandowsky has not got ONE genuine response to his survey, let alone enough to establish a control.

Lewandowsky’s survey is not science, not objective, but it is arguably the product of a completely biased mind.

In the field of law there are certain conditions that if met can lead to a lawyer having hios practising license revoked is there certain conditions pertaining to a scientist that can lead them to having their degree torn up?

Cohers you’re not arguing against what I wrote, but what you think I think. I have not defended, or read, Lewie’s paper, and make no comment. The comment I do make is that there is no reason to hold as an a priori position that it would be inappropriate to sample users of a range of websites.

You cannot conduct a survey for scientific purposes (well any purpose) when you cannot control the number of responses from one individual.

For example i could have responded to that survey 1000 times and therefore skewed the resultd one way or the other, Lewandowsky would have no way of knowing this therefore his results could be complete crap therefore this paper is not based on science regardless of how strongly he presents it as such.

Regardless of this fact the results would be skewed as Lewandowsky would know from which sites he received a response, it is not scientifically acceptable to say “oh well i offered (albeit under a bogus name) them an opportunity to have input) shrug teh shoulders and then pretend that he has sampled an unbiased field of participants.

I’m a bit late to this party, but no-one seems to have spotted Mattb’s disingenuous remark that: “When I did the survey I’m sure it was from a skeptic site link, and I definately would have registered a greater tendency to subscribe to a range of the other conspiracies than AGW”

Well, Matt, just so we can be sure from which ‘skeptic site’ you took the survey would you like to check your browser history to see if it will jog your memory? As it happens, as we now know which ‘skeptic’ sites were claimed to have linked to the survey, your choice of which one is somewhat restricted. Care to change your claim as to where you took the survey – if you did?

Lewandowsky: Now I know that evil climate deniers are in a vast worldwide conspiracy to embarrass me! Everything I do is undermined from all directions, by nefarious bloggers and their Big Oil paymasters! The made me screw up the distributions of my survey, they made me screw up my analysis of data, they made me screw up my journal article (which has been peer reviewed I’ll have you know), and they even made me screw up my own blog responses. Now everyone except my True Believers sees me as a raving, biased, unscientific, incompetent fool. It’s all the fault of the climate deniers, I tell you! They pulled all the strings and made all this happen. You have to believe me, I am an expert on conspiracies!

Of course I see the point that Prof L has demonstrated he is in no position to assess the scientific merits of the climate change consensus. He has demonstrated dreadful scientific method and logic. It seems to abound within the AGW camp.

But are there not other more important issues we could be discussing? Are we giving someone too much air time and pushing his name up the Google and Alexa ratings? Shouldn’t we now just withdraw, ignore and leave the guilty to wither?

Let’s be positive rather than negative. Let’s get back to promoting good science and not keep wallowing in the mire and murk at the level of the consensus crowd.

I suspect this is a diversion on the eve of the eleventh anniversary of 9-11-2001

Until world leaders and leaders of the scientific community address fraudulent global temperature data that were identified in Climategate emails and documents in Nov 2009 nobody will know how many other intentional acts of deception they have initiated.

Hey Oliver, you’ve made an impact on Stephen Lewandowsky! See the video made by the CSIRO mouthpiece website TheConversation.
He never mentions the sun during this clip and the passages he quotes seem to be from David Evans, but the video publisher’s summary says:
“Professor Stephan Lewandowsky steps into the twilight zone of climate change scepticism: where the sun is made of iron and the royals are out to get you.”

Interesting that Dr Evans has never said the Royals are out to get us OR that the sun is made of iron, but Old Lew has never let facts stand in the way of crafting a good story.

I can only assume your frequent comments about the sun’s composition have attracted the warmist’s attention. Now that you’ve got the spotlight, if anyone else asks about it I recommend you should stick ONLY to astrophysics in your responses.

Important to expose the kind of stuff going on under the guise of legitimate research, and presumably elsewhere/everywhere in the social sciences.

Important to expose it for all to see – the public, students and graduates at UWA.

How can UWA (and Murdoch University)justify funding what is clearly an activist blog where Lewandowsky appears to be not only one of its moderator team, but also gets away with posting pseudo-academic nonsense and avoiding real scrutiny of his paper’s many flaws?

“the fact-free echo machines of the internet sit awkwardly with the notion of civility and conversation of which apologies are an integral part. I therefore doubt that any such apologies will be forthcoming.”

Asst Prof Mark Edwards (Business School, University of Western Australia)

Assoc Prof David Hodgkinson (Law School, University of Western Australia)

Prof Carmen Lawrence (School of Psychology, University of Western Australia)

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Grant, for those of us interested in climate science, sorry that this topic is such a bore, and so seemingly pointless. I understand and you are not the only one who feels that way.

Let me endorse what Alice said — this paper is a gift to us as well as a burden. If we choose to ignore it, and not pursue it, we are letting them get away with bad science, shocking methods, patent breaches of logic, and our public funds. Other scientists who are doing similar work will be watching to see what happens. Will Lewandowsky escape with his credibility intact after this, or will the people who endorse him – the Head of Psychology, the Dean of Science, the VC of UWA and the ARC which funded him — will they be called upon to justify their decision?

Does UWA endorse the scientific method?
Does UWA use and train it’s science staff in logic and reason?

Jo – it’s your site and I respect your approach on this.
Alice – I hope I am not trivialising this issue.

I think even more than scientific or university standards, the heart of this issue is one of morality. The timing of the requests differing between consensus and skeptical blogs, the ‘anonymous’ approaches to skeptical bloggers, the subsequent claims of ‘rejection’ – these all expose in my view very low moral character.

Any points scored in terms of scientific integrity, logic and reason will not address the moral deficiencies.

If this fraudulent survey is not exposed and given as much publicity as the title has (…faked moon landing etc.) then it will be cited again and again as a respectable “peer reviewed” study like the Doran and Zimmerman fraud, the 97% consensus.

Those who have suffered under her, will recall that Carmen Lawrence is a devout Fabian Socialist.

She used to be (unelected) Premier of Western Australia, was defeated by a “bar of soap” and then fled to feral parliament in Canberra to represent the frustrated communists of Fremantle where her presence was distinguished by not being so, despite decorating the front bench under Keating and several successors. Suffering from the pressures of politics, she sought final refuge (? or an air of gravitas?) amidst the sandstone of academia.

Carmen Lawrence is already infamous for her inability to recall facts at a royal commission into the tabling of bogus papers that resulted in the suicide of Penny Easton. The commission found that she had lied; which was the political poison that the ALP factions needed to get rid of her. That ultimately resulted in her retirement from office.

Just a brief comment and question on order of questions. Changing the order is a way to account for bias introduced by the order (ie an answer to one question might be influenced by a previous question); having a static order is often a bad thing. I would have thought that enabling the survey software to vary the order in a way that was blind to the person’s demographic would be the way to achieve this.

How did he manage to target a particular order of questions to people responding from different blogs? Or did he?

The strategy is the worst aspect. I would liken it to putting a webpoll up at the Drum and writing a paper as a result. If you used this set of questions with the sort of accompanying instructions he seems to have given you’re wide open to activists scamming it.

Both sides have plenty skin in the game. As an example recall the Scientific American poll a couple years ago. They made the mistake of making it similarly open. The sceptical blogs reported on it and not surprisingly, since many more people read these than consensus blogs, the result of the poll wasn’t quite what SciAm expected. I would not however have considered this to be a journal article meriting poll. Prof Lewandowsky’s poll design and strategy seems quite similar to the SciAm débâcle.

Goal posts have moved.
I was under the impression that Lewandowsky claimed that five blogs refused his request. To me that means that they actively responded in some way. It seems that no one actively refused, they just failed to notice his vague anonymous email.
It seems he has told another pork pie.

There’s no point acting all surprised about it. All the planning charts and demolition orders have been on display in your local planning department in Alpha Centauri for fifty of your Earth years, so you’ve had plenty of time to lodge any formal complaint and it’s far too late to start making a fuss about it now.

OMG I am going to have to explain. Bruce’s quote is from the Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams.

In the same book, there is a robot that can analyse your taste buds, read your thoughts, and create exactly the refreshment you want. Hence you get a drink that tastes almost …

Please do try and keep up.

And now you are going to tell me that you knew that all along, and thus another worm-hole will appear in the galaxy space-time continuum which will require filling so that it does not become a hazard to faster than fright transportation.

The original radio series version is the best IMO. The subtle sound effects just don’t come across in the book, movie or TV.

Most vivid was when RN ran the series late nights. I was on site and could listen to them before going on night shift. Helps immeasurably to stay awake with Marvin and towels and cups of tea orbiting in your brain all night.

No I’m not saying Prof Lewandowsky is a Vogon, really I’m not, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he files his data in a cabinet marked Beware the Leopard. Don’t bother trying a FOI.

In reply to those who say that we should just ignore Lew: the problem is not Lew himself, but exposing the culture of political propaganda and intimidation at major Australian universities, a travesty of free and independent research.

Does anyone think it would be possible for a young postdoc or PhD student not already politically committed to The Cause to do research in that intimidating environment, to be considered for a promotion, or even to be admitted to that department in the first place, or to even wish to go there? That’s how you get your “consensus”. The irony is that UWA and all other major universities waffle on and on about “promoting diversity” and the terrible strife of politically-correct groups (women, aborigines, gay and lesbians, non-white immigrants, etc) who are said to face implicit discriminatory attitudes in their academic careers just for not being white males, but at the same time those universities are happy to enforce their new McCarthyism against “deniers” (no diversity of political ideas allowed), and are proud of it.

As for Lew, before he turned his attention fully to exposing climate deniers, his previous political Cause was exposing Western lies in the War on Terror. I remember his surveys on that topic, eg http://websites.psychology.uwa.edu.au/labs/cogscience/documents/LskyICPpeace.ppt probably just as badly planned as this one, but they were just excuses to tell his captive audience Bush & Blair were liars and war criminals (an opinion which is the only acceptable view of any respectable Australian academic, of course).

Can I make an off topic comment here that I suspect many may be interested in?

It’s all about the deception

The sensitivity level on my ‘BS detector’ has been raised as a result of an incident over the past few days on a web site that proclaims to provide objective, impartial information for the Australian electricity industry. I now believe it is a front group for the renewable energy industry and CAGW alarmists. It is common for such sites, to delete comments that do not support what they are advocating. The following explains what happened on ‘WattClarity‘ over the past two days:

2. I asked how much CO2 emissions were avoided by the wind energy and what was the CO2 abatement cost?

3. I received a reply that did not answer my question. I posted a second comment explaining how the calculations can be done and suggesting they insert the correct numbers since they have access to them and I do not.

4. I received a second reply which is just obfuscation. I now believe WattClarity is a cover for advocacy for the wind energy cause.

But there’s more today. Today, ‘ClimateSpectator‘ has published the same article. The fact WattClarity would publish its article on ClimateSpectator shows that WattClarity is simply a front for the renewable energy industry.

My two comments that were deleted from the WattClarity thread are below (First, please read the first two comments and Watt Clarity’s reply to them here:http://www.wattclarity.com.au/2012/09/high-wind-production-in-south-australia/ Watt Clarity’s responses, read carewfully in the light of the deletions, suggest they have an agenda which is very different to what they say in the third paragraph of their response to my first comment. Is it deception?)

My comment #3:

Paul,

Thank you for your response to my second comment

I understand this is not an area WattClarity wants to get into.

However, in that case, I’d suggest you should not have posted your seriously misleading response to my first comment. Posting only an upper bound figure, without a lower bound and central estimate, is seriously misleading.

I also suggest that your points 1) and 2) in your response are misleading.

My case 1, which is the one I gave example calculations for, does not require you to “determine the scenario that would otherwise have unfolded”

However, it does require that Australia have accurate emissions measurements at 5 to 15 minute intervals, which is something we do not have. This is an important point in itself. I’d suggest you should make it. It is an important point because renewable energy proponents are advocating, and governments are committing to, billions of dollars in investments in wind capacity without having the evidence to show it achieves the claimed benefits.

Higher electricity costs are being passed on to consumers and businesses, yet we do not know that the reasons for it are justified.

I’d urge you to at least say that we have no idea how much CO2 emissions are avoided by wind generation – the CO2 emissions avoided could be anywhere between your upper bound estimate and less than zero.

My comment #4:

Paul,

You say:

For instance, the “joewheatley” post on the Irish system (you point to above) contains some conclusions that fit into this category. Whether this is because of Reason 1 or Reason 3 is not of interest to us.

That is an unsubstantiated assertion. Would you care to spell out exactly what “joewheatley” conclusions you are referring to. By the way, I put a lot of time into analysing the EirGrid data; I did that before Joe Wheatley and totally independently.

PS you asked about time-based emissions data, which is available from the AEMO for the Australian NEM – though I suspect it has been generated with the use of the same gross simplifying assumptions that are (to my knowledge) also the case for time-varying unit efficiency calculations right across the world.

No. That statement is incorrect. Unfortunately these statements you are making show you know little about the subject, but are making highly misleading statements.

I suggest you should retract your statements. They are filled with errors. It makes me expect that much of the material on the site would also be unreliable and misleading.

My BS detector’s sensitivity level has been raised again. I don’t believe much of the BS we are being fed.

The Maori claim is political.
The current NZ Govt wants to partially sell some state assets( up to 49%) . The first up for partial sale are the electricity companies. Currently they operate as State Owned Enterprises ( SOEs) so they are operated commercially and return an annual dividend to the Govt. Maori seem to be quite happy with this but they have recently put an ownership claim forward for water and now air
(because of the wind generation). It seems if the partial asset sale policy was dropped their claims
(especially the wind/air one) might be forgotten — ie. it is all political.
To be fair there are some water issues that need to be clarified ( some springs and streams on traditional tribal lands) and this will be done.But not major waterways.

Further to the “effectiveness” of wind power in reducing CO2 emissions from the Netherlands:

The net total of fuel saving electricity provided by our wind turbines therefore is 6.17 – 4.6 = 1.57 MW on average over the year. That is ~ 1.6% of the installed capacity. It makes wind developments a mega money pit with virtually no merit in terms of the intended goal of CO2 emission reduction or fossil fuel saving.

That puts the RoI somewhere around 300 years unless the market value of rust increases sharply.

Based in Brisbane his software company is highly involved in the energy market and hard or difficult questions on one of his many web and BLOG sites are not welcome.

Using his WattClarity site to promote his other interests he cannot allow such questions.

Here is his portfolio:
1. Global Roam – a software company with the mission statement of: We exist to make the energy market understandable – to a wide range of people (except experts like yourself Peter)

“I’m an engineer that somehow ended up with a degree in Mechanical Engineering (seems they let the rabble through) – who started working in the Electricity Supply Industry whilst on university vacations, and did not escape. Just to add to the confusion, this company is a software company. It’s not that bad though, as it is an interesting industry – very capital intensive and one of the most volatile commodity markets in the world. Not a good combination, though, in terms of risk – which is where we can help (by painting a clear picture).”

So I wouldn’t expect a lot of interest in answering your questions Peter – as Paul is on the GREEN train – but maybe this will change in a year or two! The links provided above will probably boost their website hits by hundreds – don’t go there it’s not worth it!

Here we have a bloke who obviously needed a few brownie points to help his career along.

He does what hundreds in the same situation have done, & produces a paper promoting the AGW myth. All he expects is a pat on the head from his dean, & a friendly smile from the brethren.

What does he get? A whole host of competent people tearing his little little effort totally to pieces. There have been heaps of similar pieces like this, that shone for a day or two, got the author his pat on the head he craved, then disappeared with out trace, just as they should.

Not so poor Stephen. His little effort has attracted high explosive missiles from all directions. What’s more, they are all armed with irrefutable data, that is so damaging.

The poor man must be overwhelmed. This is not what he expected, is not ready for, & has no answer, prearranged or possible.

roger pielke sr., on the other hand, has something to say about Peter Wadhams, who is one of the reviewers for the next IPCC report, see second link:

9 Sept: Guardian: Terry Macalister: Climate change expert calls for nuclear power ‘binge’ to avert global warming
Peter Wadhams, professor of ocean physics at Cambridge University, warns CO2 levels are rising at a faster than exponential rate
Peter Wadhams, professor of ocean physics at Cambridge University, said both potential solutions had inherent dangers but were now vital as time was running out.
“It is very, very depressing that politicians and the public are attuned to the threat of climate change even less than they were 20 years ago when Margaret Thatcher sounded the alarm. CO2 levels are rising at a faster than exponential rate, and yet politicians only want to take utterly trivial steps such as banning plastic bags and building a few windfarms,” he said.
“I am very suspicious of using technology to solve problems created by technology, given that we have messed up so much in the past but having done almost nothing for two decades we need to adopt more desperate measures such as considering geo-engineering techniques as well as conducting a major nuclear programme.”…http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/sep/09/climate-change-expert-calls-for-nuclear-power-boost

7 Sept: Climate Science: Roger Pielke Sr: A Provocative New Study Reported By The BBC – Arctic Ice Melt ‘Like Adding 20 Years Of CO2 Emissions’
(BBC) includes the text:
…Prof Wadhams calculates this absorption of the sun’s rays is having an effect “the equivalent of about 20 years of additional CO2 being added by man”…ETC…
(PIELKE) However, what Peter Wadhams did not report is that IF, as a result of a reduction of surface albedo, the reduction in the Arctic ice cap has put as much heat into the system as all the CO2 we have generated in that time, it means that the radiative warming contribution of added CO2 over recent decades, as diagnosed by upper surface heat content, a global average surface temperature anomaly, a lower tropospheric temperature anomaly, etc, has been significantly overstated…http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2012/09/07/a-provocative-new-study-reported-by-the-bbc-arctic-ice-melt-like-adding-20-years-of-co2-emissions/

Not sure what Pielke’s really driving at there.
Wadham’s statement has been mangled by the popular press (predictably) and some of it seems like rubbish, eg,

CO2 levels are rising at a faster than exponential rate,

Huh? I don’t think so. Unless we’re using some very funny units of time….even then…no, that statement just doesn’t compute. What did he mean?

But it seems to me his meaning is clear: the current rate of radiative imbalance is higher than predicted due to the modelled predictions using numbers for ice cover that were are higher than what is the current reality.
Pielke’s response is just plain wrong:

over recent decades the melting of the Arctic ice cap has put as much heat into the system as all the CO2 we have generated in that time.

Wrong, wrong wrong. Not what Wadham said, at all.
And that’s why Lewandowsky calls Pielke a sceptic. Because he is – leaping on an opportunity to cast doubt on climate science without first thinking about the accuracy of what he is saying.

I asked by secretary MRS MARIAM ABACHA to respond with the obvious relevant heading “CONGRATULATIONS YOU HAVE WON!” and a message accepting his offer to host the survey, something along the lines of “THIS REPOSNE WILL COME YOU YOU AS A SURPRISE…”

For some reason my office, based in Lagos, never had any follow up from Prof Lewandowski….

If Lewandowsky had sent any of us his survey in an email, would we have responded? The answer is an unequivocal “No” – Note: I cannot speak for the boring old farts and naive youngsters who occasionally post here.

I never open emails from people I do not know and certainly not their attachments.

I have no idea how many emails a sceptic blog receives daily, but it must be a large multiple of what I receive.

Lewandowsky would not be where he is today if he was stupid, so:

1. He must have know he would receive no response from an email sent to a sceptical blog, especially if it was sent from his previously unknown assistant.

2. He would have known if he had received responses from a large number of typical sceptics, his ‘belief in conspiracies’ theory would have been blown out of the water.

3. However, he clearly thought the obviously faked ‘belief in conspiracies’ responses to his survey could be entered without anyone noticing.

Bottom line: As with almost everything in ‘climate science’, dig a little and all you find is manipulated data, dubious conclusions, bad science and individuals obsessed by a dodgy cause.

I don’t think that any of the principal players on the Alarmist side are ‘stupid’ in the academic IQ sense. They can all do research, collect figures and perform analyses, and with few exceptions can even plot trends in Excel.

It is their personalities that have stripped a gear — many of them appear to be emotionally immature, narcissistic, arrogant; and their grandiose self-absorption takes up so much of their mental space that there is no room for what might be called ‘common sense’.

These traits also imply a serious lack of self-awareness, so they have very little idea of how most people interact, and what might be called ‘decent behaviour’.

The issue Lewandowsky faces, as with the rest of the academic dross who hang on the outside of the climate science gravy train, is that real world data show the apocalyptic predictions of Hansenkoism are wrong. These people have two choices: accept ‘the team’ got it wrong or attack those pointing out these serious scientific mistakes.

‘The so-called psychological studies, I find interesting and encouraging for a number of reasons. Politically, it’s the usual stereotyping of the opposition, a way of dehumanising, and therefore writing off their influence as insignificant…..

The tone and intensity of these studies is becoming increasingly aggressive. The word denier is now appearing in published papers and the vileness of the stereotypes we’re accused of being, is getting worse…….They’re fighting a losing battle with public opinion and they know it. Their support is melting away more rapidly every day and most frighteningly, they can’t seem to find a way of stopping that, never mind slowing it down.’

‘The spectrum of the light leaving the earth going into space ranges between two different blackbody spectra, a warmer one of about 270 K, and a colder one from about 220 K.

……The most pronounced of these absorption bands, comes from the bending vibration of CO2. Light of this intensity that shines from the surface of the earth is absorbed by the CO2 in the atmosphere (Figure 4-4). The CO2 in the atmosphere then radiates its own light at this frequency…..

Other parts of the spectrum, most notably the broad smooth part around 1000 cycles/cm, follow a warmer blackbody spectrum. These come directly from the ground.’

So, the author assumes the Earth emits IR as if it were an isolated black body in a vacuum, totally false. He then says CO2 IR from the surface is absorbed in the lower atmosphere then re-radiated at TOA where it is much colder.

In reality very little CO2 IR can be emitted from the earth’s surface because as with all other GHGs, identical wavelength thermal radiation from the lower atmosphere turns it off, a well-established principle of radiant heat transfer. If not true, there could never be radiative equilibrium – think about it [it’s called Prevost Exchange]

This is a failure to understand that TOA attenuation of CO2-IR is self-absorption of thermal IR, nothing to do with what happens at the bottom of the atmosphere. The whole subject was constructed on a fake premise. It increases IR absorption by a factor of 5. Each failed prediction derives from this basic mistake.

(Snipped) like Lewandowsky must accept they were conned by Hansen, Trenberth, Houghton etc. who failed to understand this most basic science. Engineers understand it because we measure such effects every day. This is science failure on an heroic scale.

Perhaps there may have been a purpose to Lewandowsky’s madness. AGW believers, their political supporters and their media propagandists are now facing the awful truth. They have no exit strategy. They cannot claim “there were no dissenting voices”. They cannot try “in light of new science just to hand” because the dissenting voices have already covered all areas of the flawed pseudo science in depth for years. Perhaps the only strategy left was “we can be excused for not listening to and actively trying to smear and silence sceptics because they were all conspiracy nuts”

I doubt Lewandowsky’s plan was that thought out. The evidence of his other writings indicates he was just another sorry little Gleick. Just in case however – There is no exit strategy that will work in the age of the Internet. Every fellow traveller in this pseudo scientific hoax will carry the stain forever.

Anyone else noticed the symmetry of this event?
Lewandowsky wants to prove that skeptics only disagree on CAGW because they are cognitively deficient and gullible in a whole range of other kooky beliefs.
Jo wants to prove warmists only disagree on CAGW because they practice junk science in a range of other areas besides climate.

(ding!) poetic lightbulb moment.

Or in the words of Jon Stewart, THIS… is your weekly moment of global warming Zen.

I just had my EUREKA moment and wanted to share it with you.
I think that I now understand WHY and HOW Lewandowsky did all those blunders he did.

We are actually overestimating him by looking for rational and sophisticated explanations.
I am now convinced that the truth is actually very simple : HE HAS NO CLUE ABOUT WHAT THE CLIMATE BLOGOSPHERE IS.
He doesn’t know what blogs are out there, which are leading and what editorial policies they have.
He never visited one and doesn’t know what kind of people visit them.
For us who are both scientists and familiar with climate science blogosphere it seems impossibly stupid but if Lewandowsky accepted a simple survey I made, it would appear that FOR HIM there is actually NO difference between Tamino and say REFERENCE FRAME.

He probably just asked one of his (green?) buddies from the physics department “Can you give me a list of 5 – 10 blogs about climate science ?” and then proceeded.
He probably truly thought that it didn’t matter WHAT blogs he chooses as long as he had enough of them.

So what says is just incompetence of giant proportions and not being Australian, I pity you guys for having allowed such individuals to teach (??) something, anything to your kids.
If my kid went to this university I would have probably filed a complaint for fraud (e.g I am promised education and I am given incompetence).

It may not be that Lewandowsky “has no clue about the climate blogsphere” but that he does not have a clue about the physics of the climate processes and thus the flaws of the models giving rise to the alarmist claims and the CAGW consensus. Like so many who went through school over the last three or four decades, he, and probably the rest of his department, were taught that the false notion that carbon dioxide is a dangerous pollutant. So the confusion arises as to just what is the conspiracy and who are the conspirators – the alarmists or the sceptics?

[...] themselves guilty of what they accuse the deniers of doing. Thank God for people like Joanne Nova here and Anthony Watts here who have chewed up the BS mongers rhetorical unscientific propaganda at [...]

I think I beat Pat to posting this block buster ( OT but you’ll all find it worthwhile)

(Reuters) – The European Union will impose a limit on the use of crop-based biofuels over fears they are less climate-friendly than initially thought and compete with food production, draft EU legislation seen by Reuters showed.

The policy u-turn comes after EU scientific studies cast doubt on the emissions savings from by crop-based fuels, and following a poor harvest in key grain growing regions that pushed up prices and revived fears of food shortages.

And where have we heard that before? Yes, Skeptics, we are ahead of our time.

Education in Australia has been going down down down in standards Since Keating took over. Its affected particularly primary and secondary science and mathematics. I can give one example of twins who came to a country in South America (one of the most backward countries re world rankings) although the 9 year old (Grade 4) was given a C in maths at a public school in Australia the child was ranked suitable for Grade 2 in that sOUTH aMERICAN country and unable to enter the school due to the extremely poor maths knowledge. This is reflected in individuals such as Lewandowski who probably was educated in a school in Australia or got no education whatsoever abroad LOL

mark D and yes billions have been spent for nothing. AGW is like communism was for the hippy crowd in the 70′s its just a fad. As they grow up the whole thing will vanish (just like commmunism as a “fashion” has. Note most AGW’ers are relatively young Flannery, Mann Gleick ect….compared to real physicists such as Lindzen, Singer, Dyso Freeman etc

Lewandowsky claims he had provided search keys like – via interview on Desmogblog!

“One stated “Thanks. I will take a look” and another asked “Can you tell me a bit more about the study and the research design?” Perhaps an inbox search for these phrases might help some bloggers to move on from their latest conspiracy theory.”

He even implies his own ‘conspiracy’ about why the 4 denied contact..
———————-http://shapingtomorrowsworld.o…..yGof4.html
Lewandowsky:
“2. Why would the people who were contacted publically fail to acknowledge this fact?
Several hypotheses could be entertained but I prefer to settle for the simplest explanation.

It’s called “human error.” It simply means the 4 bloggers couldn’t find the email, didn’t know what to search for, or their inboxes were corrupted by a move into another building, to name but a few possibilities.

The only fly in the ointment in that hypothesis is that I provided search keys and exact dates and times of some correspondence.”

———-
Now if he had supplied the search key of the SUBJECT of the email sent, or even the NAME of the sender – Hanich.. perhaps it would have been the tiniest bit more helpful.. Given that sceptics were looking for the name Lewandowsky, or even the co-authors (Hanich not one of them)
The man is clearly playing odd games.

Lewandowsky stated:
“It will be noted that all 4 have publically stated during the last few days/weeks that they were not contacted.”

Robert Pielke Jnr said this when Jo Nova emailed him to ask if ‘Lewandowsky’ had contected him:
“Hi Joanne- Never heard of the guy, and a search of my email finds no contact from him. Hope this helps”

As Robert doesn’t consider himself a ‘sceptic’ I’m sure he was surprised to discover someone caled Hanich, had sent him an email, he only searched again, because Mcintyre had found it.

Lucia states: “Roger’ is not stating publicly that he was not contacted. It’s responding to Joanne’s question and truthfully reporting that he had never hear of the guy and reporting that a search of the email find no contact from him. And guess what: Roger was never contacted by Lewandowsky and no search for Lewandowsky would have permitted Roger to find the email. Roger was contacted by Hanich. The evidence shows Roger was entirely truthful, and went above and beyond the call of duty in answering Joanne’s questions.

After his fishing exercise got more bites than he could chew, good ol’ Lew is trying to block out the chorus of never ending electronic feedback with eyes closed, fingers in ears going “Lalalalalalaaaa..”. I love the blogosphere – unaffected by such childish attempts at ignorance. Now there’s a picture for Josh and WUWT..

Professor Lewandowsky can be commended: after five consecutive whiny adolescent blog rants, he finally posted with a substantive discussion of some aspects of his methodology! I realize that this is not a good ratio of substance to whine, especially for such an esteemed academic, but it’s a start. There are still serious problems to be addressed, Lewandowsky may find himself hoisted by his own petard:

Not stupid but deluded which makes one do stupid things. When people follow a ‘Cause’ (any ‘Cause’ will do), and they stop thinking critically about the Cause then they become deluded about the reality around them. CAGW is a Cause and the participants are becoming seriously deluded and because of the incessant attacks coming in on them are just acting more stupid whilst THEY think they are being clever.

Trying to get them to reverse would be on par to a cult buster trying to deprogram a cultist.

Reflecting on what may be the reason that prevents us from establishing a new world order – whether political or economic in nature — I believe it is because people in today’s world—in the world of ICTs, of information communication technologies, of interdependence of globalization — are frightened when they hear the word “order.” They may be tired at attempts to impose an order. I believe people would like to have something else: normal transparent relations amongst themselves in a world that is very interdependent and made transparent by the ICTs. In today’s world you can communicate with every person you would like to; you just need an email address and a computer. Nobody can prevent you from doing that. No order can prevent that.

It is a phrase much favored in their documents. I took the test at WUWT and was most startled when I saw the phrase as I have read many UN documents where the phrase occurred. I do not believe in anything but “like minded people”.

You can repeat the search for yourself — using quotes around the phrase — 360 times in all.

[I posted a prior version of this comment at WUWT] It turns out that John Cook and Stephan Lewandowsky are much entwined in a variety of ways. Cook and Lewandowsky are engaged in propaganda not science. They engage in a war of words on behalf of their version of “science” but it is an dubious PR campaign, not any scientific activity. Case at issue: the Lewandowsky “moon conspiracy” paper is an effort to thrust a simple propaganda meme into wide circulation, with the imprimatur of a leading psychology journal: that dissenters from climate science orthodoxy are nutty conspiracists who don’t even believe the moon landings occurred. The title is inflammatory and even Tom Curtis of SkS recognized quickly that it is scientifically unacceptable in relation to the actual data and contents of the paper.

Now it appears from Lewandowsky’s own data that as few as ONE of the 1100+ responses (one which likely may be faked as Steve McIntyre is suggesting) provides the basis for Lew’s title. This needs to be examined, analyzed, pushed hard…. for if it’s true that the very title is based upon spurious or unreliable data, that will push the discussion toward looking for the line between utter incompetence and something even worse….

Given that the very title of Lewandowsky et al (2012) is based upon alleged statistical significance of a belief in the fantasy conspiracy about faked Moon landings for “skeptics” about climate science, that should discredit the paper right there. Not only is Lewandowsky overtly seeking to equate dissent from climate “consensus” with demented conspiracy-mongering, he is picking the most easily falsifiable conspiracy claim when it (faked moon landings) is the least evidenced in his own data.

Why did he pick that one to highlight in the title? Not because it is the connection best supported by his data, but because it is the most ridiculous and sensational. It’s not clear it has ANY support in his own data, but in any case the “therefore” of the title is blatantly unsupportable: there is no possible causal connection between a belief of one (probably fake) respondent to an online survey and Lewandowsky’s generalized “therefore (climate) science is a hoax” attributed to skeptics generally.

The title of Lewandowsky’s paper is clearly “inflammatory” (and unjustifiable) — therefore, by the moderation rules of Lewandowsky’s own STW blog, this title should be snipped as “inflammatory” whenever it appears in a post at STW (I am quoting it here not to be inflammatory, but simply to quote what I am discussing):

[A]“NASA faked the moon landing,
[B]Therefore (Climate) Science is a Hoax:
[C]An Anatomy of the Motivated Rejection of Science”

Utterly unacceptable as the title of a scientific paper when the paper’s own data provide no basis for attributing [A} to skeptics generally and no possible causal connection between [A] and {B} to justify the “therefore”. [C] would be of zero interest if it referred to merely one nutty anonymous online respondent who believes NASA faked all of the moon landings. Of course Lewandosky is purporting to find data of great importance to understanding “the motivated rejection of science” — yet even in its own terms the paper does NOTHING to help with understanding any cognitive aspects of “the motivated rejection of science”. It is pure propaganda of a low order.

Excellent summing up.
It is well understood by everyone on either side of the debate that Lewandowsky’s hopelessly flawed and abusive research pretending to reveal that someone who is doubtful and skeptical of the CAGW hypothesis is likely to be a believer in conspiracy theories is counter intuitive or just plain wrong.

But Lewandowsky is tolerated because, as you so rightly write, he is a distraction and in the academic world, where the grant trough is everything, Lewandowsky is what is known as a useful ‘idiot’ (in the Voltaire sense of course).

Psychology is a bit of solid speculation mixed in with lots of marshmallow science and some outright voodoo. It’s a perfect tool for authoritarians, and already has good form in that regard. This struck me as a good match for Lewandowsky’s superficial tripe.

We even get “rankings” on the basis of “analysis” of – wait for it! – “data”! (No mention in the article of the vile racist Dixiecrat, Woodrow Wilson. With his haughtiness and internationalism, he’s still the darling of shallow-minded intellectuals.

Lewandowsky’s guidelines for students talk about the importance of maintaining proper research records, randomization, and ethics. It is unlikely that Lewandowsky made any ‘mistakes’ through ignorance.

E.g. ‘Note: It is an APA requirement that all data be kept for at least 5 years (i.e., basically forever). AGAIN: This means that you must give all relevant documents to Charles [Hanich] for safe-keeping towards the end of the year.’